Latest / Crafted Clarity: Distilling the Tension Between Success and Significance / Success or Mid-Life Crisis? : What’s Gone Is Still Working | Crafted Clarity Podcast

Transcript

Success or Mid-Life Crisis? : What’s Gone Is Still Working | Crafted Clarity Podcast · Crafted Clarity: Distilling the Tension Between Success and Significance

• 0:02
  We seem to be obsessed with more.
• 0:05
  We're trained to measure our leadership and even our value by
• 0:10
  what we add. More revenue, More headcount,
• 0:15
  more accolades, more volume. We've been conditioned to
• 0:20
  believe that more means success. But in the world of whiskey
• 0:26
  making, a barrel that stays full is a barrel that has fallen
• 0:30
  short of its true potential and purpose.
• 0:35
  When whiskey is first put into a wooden barrel to age, the
• 0:38
  distiller fills that container to the brim.
• 0:42
  The whiskey is straight off the still.
• 0:45
  It's clear, raw, and lacking depth.
• 0:50
  To become the whiskey it's supposed to be, the spirit has
• 0:53
  to move. As a whiskey ages, it does move,
• 0:59
  and actually a good portion of the whiskey moves straight out
• 1:03
  of the barrel. It just evaporates, and that
• 1:07
  loss is what leads to purpose for the whiskey.
• 1:12
  In our very first conversation here on Crafted Clarity, I
• 1:16
  introduced the concept of the angel's share, that poetic
• 1:20
  mystery where a portion of the whiskey in a barrel simply
• 1:23
  vanishes as it ages, evaporates into thin air.
• 1:29
  In that first episode, the Angel share was a beautiful metaphor,
• 1:33
  inviting us to accept loss in our journey to transformation.
• 1:39
  It was an invitation for us to view loss as a critical moment
• 1:43
  as we shift our thinking from success to significance.
• 1:49
  Over the last 21 weeks since that first episode, I've sat
• 1:53
  across from countless leaders who realized the Angel Share
• 1:57
  wasn't just poetic about whiskey, but has become visceral
• 2:02
  and personal to them. They shared how they felt
• 2:06
  something slipping, ambition softening.
• 2:10
  They talked about how they felt the roles and titles that wants
• 2:13
  to find them lose their power. They shared that the feeling
• 2:18
  that the certainty they once carried was evaporating like the
• 2:22
  whiskey into their current season and deeper questions
• 2:26
  around what's next. I've heard this language over
• 2:31
  the concept of loss over and over, a feeling of UN stillness
• 2:36
  in your identity and the tension between wanting to stop the
• 2:40
  evaporation to minimize the loss and the pull towards what's
• 2:45
  next. For some, the instinct is to
• 2:49
  refill the space created by loss with a new project or to chase
• 2:54
  something new. For others, a bit of panic
• 2:58
  around the idea they might be entering A midlife crisis.
• 3:04
  But I want to suggest that if you're feeling this uneasiness
• 3:07
  around loss or the pull towards something greater, you aren't
• 3:12
  experiencing a crisis. You're experiencing identity
• 3:16
  awareness. You're finally becoming aware
• 3:21
  that the success you built wasn't the top layer.
• 3:25
  You're realizing that the tension you feel may actually be
• 3:29
  the birth of significance. Today we're revisiting the
• 3:35
  Angels Share Mystery. But with the maturity of this
• 3:38
  season you're actually living in, we're going to look at why
• 3:42
  no evaporation equals no extraction and why your attempt
• 3:48
  to refill the barrel is the very thing keeping you from the depth
• 3:53
  you were built for. What's gone isn't lost.
• 3:58
  What's gone is what's forming you.
• 4:06
  If you've been with me since the beginning, you might remember
• 4:09
  episode 1, The Angel Share. We talked about the portion of
• 4:14
  whiskey that escapes the barrel as it ages.
• 4:18
  Heat and cold, humidity, fluctuations and time allow the
• 4:23
  whiskey to escape through the wood, gone forever.
• 4:27
  At the time, it felt poetic, almost romantic.
• 4:32
  Loss as mystery. Evaporation as part of the
• 4:36
  craft. Back then we were standing
• 4:39
  outside the brick house looking in.
• 4:43
  But today's going to feel a little different because for
• 4:47
  many of you, what was once a metaphor has now become your
• 4:51
  experience. You're not observing evaporation
• 4:55
  anymore, you're actually feeling it.
• 4:59
  Maybe that's something that used to drive you no longer drives
• 5:03
  you in the same way. A role that once energized you
• 5:07
  now feels heavy. Ambition has shifted.
• 5:11
  Certainty feels thinner. And the question that starts to
• 5:15
  creep in is, is there something wrong with me?
• 5:21
  Over the last 21 weeks since the first Angel Share episode, I've
• 5:25
  heard from leaders who thought something was wrong with them
• 5:28
  when in reality something unfinished was finally being
• 5:32
  formed within them. The tension wasn't something
• 5:36
  being wrong, it was refinement. Refinement that revealed their
• 5:41
  success was never the final layer.
• 5:45
  Refinement that began drawing out something deeper in them.
• 5:50
  Refinement that wouldn't allow them to stay where they were.
• 5:56
  In that episode, we focused on the Angel share as what leaves
• 6:00
  the barrel, the part that disappears.
• 6:04
  But we didn't spend time on what was happening inside the wood.
• 6:09
  In whiskey aging, if nothing evaporates, then nothing
• 6:13
  extracts. The interaction between the
• 6:16
  spirit and the barrel requires that movement.
• 6:20
  It requires exchange. As a whiskey slowly escapes
• 6:25
  through the wood, something else is being drawn out.
• 6:30
  Character, depth, complexity. For those of us feeling
• 6:36
  evaporation, perhaps this is the loss of motivation, certainty,
• 6:42
  urgency, even the need to prove. We can mistakenly interpret this
• 6:47
  as decline or even loss. But what if it's extraction?
• 6:55
  What if the part that's disappearing is actually making
• 6:58
  room for something more integrated?
• 7:02
  If you're finding yourself in the season and in the tension
• 7:05
  between what you built and what you're built for, this
• 7:09
  extraction becomes more obvious. That's awareness being more
• 7:14
  real. A leader's instinct is often to
• 7:19
  fix things when they feel off, to add when something feels
• 7:23
  missing. When we feel that drop in volume
• 7:27
  in our lives, that space where our old ambition or titles used
• 7:31
  to be, our first instinct is to rush in and fill it.
• 7:37
  But a master distiller doesn't rush to replace what's lost in
• 7:40
  the barrel. They don't see the empty space
• 7:43
  at the top of the barrel as a problem to be solved.
• 7:47
  They see it as evidence of an important process.
• 7:52
  They know that if they were to force the volume back to the top
• 7:55
  by adding more to the barrel, they would be interrupting the
• 7:59
  Berry exchange that creates the value.
• 8:02
  They understand that the loss isn't an absence, it's what's
• 8:06
  required to pull the character out of the wood to create a
• 8:11
  great whiskey. And here's what's fascinating
• 8:15
  about the barrel. The spirit at the very center of
• 8:18
  the barrel is the last to touch the wood.
• 8:22
  It's protected, surrounded by volume, safe from evaporation,
• 8:30
  but it's also the last to be transformed.
• 8:33
  For many leaders, they're like the protective whiskey in the
• 8:37
  middle of the barrel, and they're protected from the woods
• 8:40
  transformation longer. This protection can be our
• 8:44
  careers, our position, even our lifestyle and bank accounts.
• 8:50
  While things are transforming around them, they might be
• 8:54
  stagnant. Our experiences, values, and
• 9:00
  even our scars are the wood of the barrel.
• 9:04
  But significance isn't the wood. It's what's extracted when we
• 9:08
  finally allow ourselves to come in contact with it.
• 9:12
  The evaporation and the sense of the loss we're feeling right now
• 9:16
  is the required movement that pulls us out of that safe metal.
• 9:22
  And like the pressure in the barrel caused by the empty
• 9:25
  space, it's the pressure that drives us to stop relying on our
• 9:29
  own volume and start trusting the transformation.
• 9:35
  Significance requires us to let go of the need to be full so we
• 9:40
  can become what we're built for. If we rush to refill that space
• 9:46
  with busyness or new titles, we're actually stalling,
• 9:50
  Stalling our maturation. I'll be honest with you, when I
• 9:58
  was in the thick of my own transition, I didn't feel like a
• 10:02
  master distiller. I felt like I was losing my
• 10:05
  mind. For years I lived in a corporate
• 10:09
  barrel that I didn't build. That barrel was high volume,
• 10:14
  high pressure, and those managing it always made sure it
• 10:17
  was full. In fact, the moment anything
• 10:21
  evaporated, it always got refilled.
• 10:25
  I had a clear role. My business card told me that my
• 10:30
  performance reviews dictated my level of success, and over time
• 10:36
  those became a proxy for my very identity.
• 10:41
  But looking back, I realized that the title on my business
• 10:44
  card was a made-up title given to me.
• 10:49
  It described my job, my function.
• 10:53
  It was the company's container that was kept full with busyness
• 10:57
  and activity. In that environment, there was
• 11:00
  no room for evaporation, no opportunity for the wood to pull
• 11:05
  out what didn't belong or to shape what I was actually
• 11:09
  becoming. I realized that no amount of
• 11:13
  aging in that system would ever refine my purpose or my
• 11:18
  identity, because it was simply no room for it.
• 11:25
  I've had many seasons since those corporate days, seasons
• 11:28
  where the coldness of the environment contracted me and
• 11:31
  compressed me inward. Other seasons where heat and
• 11:35
  pressure pushed me beyond the comfortable boundaries of the
• 11:39
  barrel. But with each season, more room
• 11:44
  was being made. More time was being allowed to
• 11:47
  shape and refine me deep in my character and infuse flavor and
• 11:53
  color. It was in those seasons that I
• 11:57
  finally realized my role is not my identity.
• 12:04
  Transformation requires pressure and time in the barrel, as
• 12:08
  important as formative as it is, is where the tension between
• 12:12
  what we built and what we built for exists.
• 12:18
  But for a long time, I mistook the tension for failing.
• 12:23
  I thought the unstillness inside of me meant I was losing my
• 12:26
  edge, when in reality I was just finally losing the filler.
• 12:33
  I spent years trying to stay full because I was taught volume
• 12:37
  was the only metric for success. But what if the loss you're
• 12:43
  feeling right now is actually the first time you've had enough
• 12:46
  room to actually grow? If this feels familiar in your
• 12:53
  season, let's look at 3 specific things that tend to evaporate
• 12:59
  and more importantly, what they leave behind.
• 13:04
  One, we trade speed for weight. In the early years, we lead by
• 13:11
  being the fastest person in the room.
• 13:13
  We outwork everyone. That's adrenaline.
• 13:18
  But as that hustle starts to evaporate, you might feel like
• 13:22
  you're losing your fire. You're not.
• 13:26
  You're gaining gravity. You've probably seen this
• 13:31
  leader, the one who doesn't have to raise their voice or run 100
• 13:35
  miles an hour to change a room. They lead from a standstill.
• 13:41
  You're trading the energy of the Chase for the weight of your
• 13:45
  presence. 2 We trade the badge for a voice.
• 13:53
  For a long time. People listen to leaders because
• 13:55
  the business card told them that they had to.
• 13:59
  That's the role, and it's also borrowed power.
• 14:03
  When that title changes, it starts to fade or loses that
• 14:08
  power. It can feel like you're becoming
• 14:10
  invisible, losing your very identity.
• 14:14
  But this is where the real extraction happens.
• 14:18
  People stop following the position and they start
• 14:21
  following you. You're finding out that you
• 14:25
  don't need to have the label in order to have the authority.
• 14:30
  You're training a function for a person.
• 14:35
  And three, we trade the map for an instinct.
• 14:40
  Success is usually built on a five year plan and framework.
• 14:44
  It can feel safe because it's full of data, but as that
• 14:50
  certainty evaporates, it's replaced by discernment.
• 14:55
  You might feel lost because the old map is gone, but you're
• 15:00
  actually being guided by something deeper than a KPI.
• 15:04
  You're training the need to be right for the ability to be
• 15:08
  wise. You're moving from a static map
• 15:13
  to a living intuition. I want you to sit with that for
• 15:19
  a second. Take a look at the space in your
• 15:22
  own barrel. If you feel like your speed is
• 15:26
  slowing down, or your title is thinning out, or your certainty
• 15:31
  is vanishing, don't rush to refill it.
• 15:35
  The empty space isn't a vacuum. It's an invitation.
• 15:40
  It's the evidence that you're finally moving out of that safe
• 15:43
  center and hitting the wood. You aren't losing your value.
• 15:50
  You're finally finding your concentration.
• 15:54
  You're moving from the volume of success to the weight of
• 15:58
  significance. If you've ever gone to a whiskey
• 16:04
  tasting, then you know You write down what stands out to you and
• 16:08
  what you want to remember. Here are my tasting notes from
• 16:11
  today's conversation. Yours might be different.
• 16:16
  The law of extraction. Growth is an exchange, and if
• 16:22
  you don't let the old volume leave, you'll never get to the
• 16:25
  deeper character. What feels like loss is actually
• 16:29
  the cost of maturity and required on the path to
• 16:33
  significance, the center versus the wood.
• 16:40
  Success is a safe place to hide in the middle of the barrel
• 16:44
  where nothing changes. But significance is what happens
• 16:49
  when you're brave enough to hit the wood and let your real story
• 16:53
  shape you. The refill trap?
• 16:59
  Staying busy just to hide the fact that you're changing or
• 17:02
  feeling unsettled. That's the vacancy, and it isn't
• 17:07
  a hole to be filled. It's the room your purpose needs
• 17:11
  to breathe. When we talk about the Angel
• 17:16
  share in our first episode, we talked about how it's a portion
• 17:20
  of the spirit that evaporates from the barrel as it ages.
• 17:25
  We talked about how we needed to accept this loss as critical on
• 17:29
  our way from success to significance.
• 17:32
  Today, we looked at the Angel share through the lens of
• 17:35
  maturation. We aren't just accepting the
• 17:38
  loss, we're acknowledging its necessity.
• 17:44
  Loss isn't a problem, it's required in order to move
• 17:48
  towards our purpose because what's gone is still working.
• 17:55
  If you're sitting in the UN stillness of this season and you
• 17:58
  want to map out what is actually being extracted in your life, I
• 18:02
  prepared the tasting notes for this episode.
• 18:06
  These tasting notes are designed to help you identify and
• 18:09
  understand and see the depth being formed in the space that's
• 18:13
  left. You can find those notes free
• 18:17
  and no login required over at craftedclarity.net/tasting
• 18:22
  Notes. Thank you for spending time in
• 18:26
  the tasting room. And remember, clarity isn't
• 18:30
  found, is Crafted. Thanks for listening to Crafted
• 18:36
  Clarity. If you're a leader wrestling
• 18:38
  with the tension between success and significance, or if you're
• 18:41
  trying to align your work with a deeper calling, I'd love to
• 18:44
  connect with you. If your organization is facing
• 18:47
  questions about strategy, whether it's alignment, ROI, or
• 18:51
  building confidence in your team.
• 18:53
  This is the work we do every day at ibrand.
• 18:56
  And if you walk this journey yourself, or maybe you're right
• 18:59
  in the middle of it, I'd love to hear your story and maybe even
• 19:02
  shared here on the podcast. You can find me at Craft Clarity
• 19:06
  Net.